281 

 I also quote the following clipping from the Cedarvale Star : 



INFECTING CHINCH BUGS. 



There is uo longer any need of having our crops destroyed by chinch bugs. A 

 remedy that is sure as death and that costs nothing has been discovered and is 

 used in this country with complete success. Mr. M. F. Mattocks, living a mile and 

 a half east of Wauneta, on the H. P. Moser farm, is entitled to the credit of demon- 

 strating in this part the efficiency of the remedy. He was about to lose his corn crop 

 by the bugs that were swarming into it from the stubble. He sent to Chancellor F. 

 H. Snow, of the State University at Lawrence, and from him received a box contain- 

 ing a half dozen diseased bugs. With them he exterminated a 40-acre field full of 

 the pests. They have died by the millions; in fact, they have about all died from 

 the infection of those six bugs, A little circular of instructions, which he followed 

 out, came with them. The six bugs were placed in a bottle with three or four hun- 

 dred from the field, and were left together 36 hours and then turned loose, both the 

 living ones and the dead, in the field. Devastation followed, and Mr. Mattocks will 

 be troubled no more with chinch bugs this year. If your crop is in danger you can 

 save it by the same means of getting the diseased bugs in your field. It will cost you 

 nothing, and is a dead sure remedy. He has been sending dead and infected bugs to 

 others in the country and to Professor Snow, whose supply was running down. 



I personally visited Mr. Mattock's farm and verified the above state- 

 ments. 



The difficulty of obtaining enough live bugs to experiment with in the 

 laboratory led to the sending out of the following advertisement, which 

 was forwarded to twenty prominent papers on August 14, with requests 

 for its publication : 



wanted! CHINCH BUGS ! 



Prof. F. H. Snow, of the University of Kansas, is in great need of some live and 

 healthy chinch bugs with which to carry on his experiments in chinch-bug infection. 

 Anyone who will send a small lot of bugs to Professor Snow, University of Kansas, 

 Lawrence, Kansas, will confer a favor on the investigator, and, it is hoped, on the 

 farmers of Kansas. 



This request for live bugs was given wide circulation and resulted in 

 keeping the laboratory fairly well supplied with material for experi- 

 ment. 



Before the close of the season of 1890 it became evident that there 

 were at least three diseases at work in our infection jars, the " white 

 fungus " (Entomophthora or Empusa), a bacterial disease (Micrococcus), 

 and a fungus considered by Dr. Roland Thaxter to be Isaria, or per- 

 haps more properly TricJioderma. 



The following report which describes the bugs as " collecting in clus- 

 ters " points to the bacterial disease as the cause of destruction in the 

 field: 



PiGUA, Kansas, July 12, 1890. 



Dear Sir: Since writing you from Humboldt, Kansas, the 6th instant, I have made 

 the happy discovery that the germs of contagious disease sent me were vital. On Sun- 

 day last upon examination of the millet field I found viilUous of dead bugs. They were 

 collected in clusters. My idea is that dampness facilitates the spread of the conta- 

 gion. The first distribution of diseased bugs 2 days after I received the packao-e 

 22595— :N^o. 6 3 



